Kelley

My fiance and I are set to be married on November 23, 2003. In
preparing for the K1 visa process, everything I had read indicated
that it would take (at most) 3 months to get our I-129F petition
approved thru the Nebraska Service Center.

I just received the Notice of Receipt in the mail today stating it
could take 150-180 to approve our case!! There aren't even 150 days
until our wedding is supposed to take place!

Is there anything I can do? Should we cancel all the wedding plans,
lose our deposits and start over from the beginning?

Has anyone recently been approved thru the Nebraska Service Center a
lot sooner than expected?!

Thanks for your help!

Michelle.Moir

Hi there

I am sorry you got the notification that it would take longer that you
thought but yep Nebraska are the pits as far as speed goes!!!!
My fiancé file our petition for our K1 and got NOA1 21/04/03 and we are
going through Nebraska too and we hope to get married 29th November 2003 and
that's pushing it !
I hope to have my London interview in early October if we get approved in
Sept, that's if we get approved then !

So I guess the answer to your question as far as I can see... is....you will
have a 5 to 6 month wait just for the American side of things to get dealt
with! I'm so sorry ...unless some miraculous thing happens between now and
then that Nebraska will get approvals in 3 months! Not gonna happen and
hasn't even if you get a Lawyer to act on your behalf. We checked that out
too !

Still waiting...I'm UK and my Fiancé USA
Good Luck and hang in there
Michelle
"Kelley" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > My fiance and I are set to be married on November 23, 2003. In
    > preparing for the K1 visa process, everything I had read indicated
    > that it would take (at most) 3 months to get our I-129F petition
    > approved thru the Nebraska Service Center.
    > I just received the Notice of Receipt in the mail today stating it
    > could take 150-180 to approve our case!! There aren't even 150 days
    > until our wedding is supposed to take place!
    > Is there anything I can do? Should we cancel all the wedding plans,
    > lose our deposits and start over from the beginning?
    > Has anyone recently been approved thru the Nebraska Service Center a
    > lot sooner than expected?!
    > Thanks for your help!

tigger1969

hi there,
i hate to be the bearer of bad news but i think your estimate of 3 months is not realistic. it took ours 4 1/2 months to be approved and that was when they were moving at a good pace.
As for planning a wedding - you can plan where you want it and how you want it to be but please if you dont want to much heartache, wait till you have visa to reserve or pay for things.
I say this cause alot of things can happen between now and when he/she gets the visa.
please have a look at our visa experiance:
http://www.freewebs.com/donnar/

Jerry Liu

Hi Kelley,

I don't know what you read that gave you the impression that NSC can approve
your petition in three months, but looking at the latest NSC processing
times,

http://www.immigration.com/processing-times/ne.html

I would say that six months is a more realistic estimate to get your
approval, assuming you don't receive a RFE. Then the petition goes to the
NVC, and then to the foreign consulate. Depending on what country your
fiance is from, it could add a few more months to your waiting time...

Jerry


"Kelley" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > My fiance and I are set to be married on November 23, 2003. In
    > preparing for the K1 visa process, everything I had read indicated
    > that it would take (at most) 3 months to get our I-129F petition
    > approved thru the Nebraska Service Center.
    > I just received the Notice of Receipt in the mail today stating it
    > could take 150-180 to approve our case!! There aren't even 150 days
    > until our wedding is supposed to take place!
    > Is there anything I can do? Should we cancel all the wedding plans,
    > lose our deposits and start over from the beginning?
    > Has anyone recently been approved thru the Nebraska Service Center a
    > lot sooner than expected?!
    > Thanks for your help!

kariml

It's unfortunate, however not wise to make wedding plans before you recieve the visa. I made the same mistake, being very ignorant of this process at the beginning and not realizing the long wait ahead of us.

Good luck to you.

melanieberns

Hi.
I had a similar situation.

I applied through the CSC at the beginning of March. I naively thought my fiance would be able to receive his interview at least by the end of July (5 months). I intended to elope and have a wedding later but my family got upset. So, we set a wedding date for August 31st instead.

I soon realized that everything was going a lot slower than imagined---after making numerous wedding plans though. I figured, since my fiance was from the UK, a visa-waiver country, that even if the visa wasn't finished we would TRY to have a ceremonial wedding (not a legal/paperwork signing wedding) here. The opporitive word being"try." There was so much uncertainty and stress revolving around the whole situation though.

Oddly enough, other circumstances stepped in and caused my mother to ask me to postpone the wedding to the following summer (she was paying). So, we went back to our initial plan of eloping. I was upset and unhappy because my expectations had built up and the momentum of the wedding seemed so hard to stop. Now, I'm glad it was postponed. It seems much better.

Nearly all of my wedding vendors were understanding and willing to put all (or half) of my deposit towards a new, unknown, future date.

btw, things sped up a bit, it looks now like his visa has a decent chance of being finished before are old wedding date...but I still have no regrets.

Good luck.

ChiMiigwech

When will the wedding take place? Right here in the US? If yes, is there any chance that your fiance come to the US to get married traditionally (without signing marriage certificate or some legal papers) so you wouldn't lose your deposit?

I know that what I write sounds silly. Just wanted to share my thoughts and hopely they could be helpful

Best of luck,
Yanne

Scout

Contact whoever you have a deposit with and see if they are willing to postpone. You are still fairly far out from November so maybe they would be willing.

Nebraska has had the reputation for being slow with K1 visa's for quite some time, so I would be curious to know where you got the information that it would at most take 3 months. I can tell you that many here on this forum planned smaller weddings and didn't set dates because of what research told us about this process.

When we filed through the TSC, it was only taking about 30 days........but we knew that things had happened in the past to slow the Service Centers and we weren't taking any chances by making firm plans about the actual date of the wedding. We originally ballparked a wedding date for December 28th, 2002. We wound up finally getting married on May 2, 2003. Many months after the date we had originally wanted.

I know it sucks, but it's a fact of life when dealing with the BCIS......expect the worst and hope for the best.

Cheers,

Leslie

BeachBunny

I would try to contact your various vendors. I am a Catering Director. On our paperwork it does say we will refund 50% of the deposit. However, if we are given adequate notice that I refund the deposit 100%.

Doesn't hurt to try...

NevAnna

3 months is not realistic at all with NSC. See my timeline below. Good luck and hang in there. It will happen

OlenkaKyiv

Hello Kelley,
Don't make any plans at all, you never know what to expect from Nebraska and actually from every center. My fiance and I never did any plans about wedding date, but I was silly to hope that i will get my approval on 150th day. Today is 164 th day and we still don't know whether we will get it next week or not. There is a metter not only about wedding dates, but you hopes also. You will feel crushed yourself if you hope to have your approval or visa on aproximate date, but you didn't it is the worst thing. So don't make any plans and wait for an approval at least. The when you know the date of interview, you can take a responsibility on yourself and even in such situation it is dangerous. Moreover you don't know whether any officer will find any mistake, lack of papers in your petitions. In this case you can get an RFE, then waiting and you won't know how long again.

this process is a fortune: you can win fast and great amount or you crawl to your victory very slow

GOOD LUCK,
Olenka

NevAnna

Right. My fiance's interview is in 16 days (yay!) and we have no set date for the wedding, nor his flight over. He will book a flight when the K1 Visa is in hand. We'll decide a date then or when he arrives. It's just not feasable to make plans when the process is so unsure. No need to set yourself up for disappointment, this process has that covered. Good luck!

Linda & Eric

Eric's interview is on Tuesday the 15th. We did not make any sort of plans until our petition was approved. Our wedding is set for Oct 25th.

NevAnna

2 more days, Linda! Eric will be the proud new owner of a shiny new K1 Visa

MrsLondon

Just a thought, but is the K3 as slow as the K1 through Nebraska? Because if not it might be quicker for ppl under that service center to marry in their home country and file for the spousal visa instead of the fiance visa.